Man hops on subway track to grab cell phone, survives being run over by train

Detailed by the local CBS affiliate in New York this week, an unidentified man at the East 105th Street L train station in NYC dropped his cell phone onto the track around 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday and decided that it was too valuable to leave on the track. According to the account from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the man jumped down onto the subway track in order to recover his phone. Unfortunately, the man wasn’t able to get off the track in time as the L train rapidly approached the station.

The man chose to lie down flat within the gap between tracks as the L train came to a screeching halt on top of him. Amazingly, the man was able to wiggle out from under the train after it came to a complete stop. Outdoor tracks, like the station at 105th Street, have a larger amount of space on the tracks compared to indoor stations around New York City. According to authorities, the FDNY sent medics to the scene, but the man has already run away from the platform, presumably unharmed, when they arrived. The L train resumed service shortly after the incident.

Speaking about the man’s decision to jump onto the subway track, MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz told CBS New York “We can’t say it enough. You should never, ever under any circumstances go onto the tracks to retrieve anything. Your life is certainly much more important than a cellphone…In essence, those trains can come at you very quickly. What most people don’t understand is that often it’s very difficult to climb back onto the platform from the tracks.”

Due to the 53 deaths that were attributed to NYC subway trains last year, the MTA distributed a PSA video during December 2013 that warns NYC residents and visitors about the danger of jumping down onto the tracks. In the video shown below, a man hops onto the track to retrieve his iPhone, but can’t muster the leverage to lift himself off the track before the train races into the station.